TREE AT MY WINDOWpaintings drawings & wood engravings SEPTEMBER 2011

Solo exhibition of forty works at the Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh, with an audience of approximately 25 visitors per day, following a gathering of 200 at the Private View. The gallery deals in contemporary fine and applied arts by UK and international artists. It represents lesser known and leading figures. Various contemporary Scottish artists exhibit; for example, Professor Ian Howard, Professor Jake Harvey, John Byrne, and Alan Davie. The gallery also specializes in late 19th & 20th Century printmaking, with works by Picasso, Vuillard, Bonnard, Matisse, Burra, Hodgkin, Leger, Hockney, Paolozzi, Frink, amongst other modern masters and lesser known printmakers. Earlier examples, such as Rembrandt etchings, are also shown. The gallery’s mailing list is added to that of exhibiting artists, with a wide scope in academic, social and cultural circles. The gallery is situated in Edinburgh’s New Town, adjacent to Bourne Fine Art, other galleries such as Anthony Woodd, and the Scottish Gallery. It is close to the permanent collections in the National Portrait Gallery and Royal Scottish Academy.

Pastoral, oil on wood, 300mm x 400mm, (private collection) One of a series of landscape & still life compositions.The ash wood-panel has been prepared with rabbit skin size & gesso, prior to laying down thin layers of pigment. Such paintings form a complement to other work printmaking and illustration. These embrace themes of abstraction and constructivism, with evocations of the natural world, architectural structures, and visions of landscape. Since graduation in 1978 I have regularly exhibited drawings and paintings in Edinburgh and London. What can be learned or has impact from these events is that the work as a whole forms a synthesis of fine and applied art within British and international modernist traditions. In pieces such as Pastoral, and in the next slide, Nightingale, there are connections to lyrical abstraction, probably influenced by the New York School, Vorticism and the St Ives School, for example, as well as post-painterley abstraction and contemporary approaches to easel painting. In the graphic work, imagery embraces various traditions from Calvert, Bewick and Palmer, followed by connections to the British etchers and engravers at work between the two World Wars, Burra, Hitchens and Sutherland, for example, and to contemporary practice in painting, printmaking & illustration in the digital age.

Nightingale, Editioned print, 1/50, wood engraving 160 x 100mm This image forms part of a commissioned brief to illustrate an essay on Birdsong for the BBC Wildlife magazine in 2010. Mark Cocker’s text describes myths and legends pertaining to birdsong, as well as giving ornithological information and natural history. The illustration covers a double-page spread, and included a thrush, cuckoo, lark and nightingale, with a quotation from John Clare’s poem. The engraving is taken from two of a total of eight woodblocks used for the illustration. This print will be shown in London, January 2013, with the Curwen Gallery. In terms of impact and audience, BBC Wildlife Magazine has wide readership with a UK & overseas circulation of 40815 copies.

Back to Earth, editioned wood engraving, 130mm x 95mm, 1/50, printed on Arakaji Natural, Japanese paper. Image commissioned by Baillie Gifford, Edinburgh, for a financial conference in Edinburgh.

Water Course, oil on wood, 300mm x 400mm (Private collection)Ash wood panel has been prepared with rabbit skin size & gessoOne of a series of landscape paintings, seen alongside other studio works.

Come In, wood engraving, 80mm x 100 mm, editioned print (1/50)Commissioned as one of twenty three illustrations for the Collected Poems of Robert Frost, Folio Society, London, 2010

Collected Poems of Robert Frost: Wood engraved patternThis image forms the cover design for the book.In terms of impact and audience, the 2010 Folio Society imprint of the Collected Poems of Robert Frost had a print run of 6000, UK and overseas.What is learned from this presentation is the manner in which a contemporary aritst makes a visual interpretation of poetry, for the purposes of publishing a book.

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I said, you said, oil on canvas on board, 260mm x 340mm, (private collection)Canvas surface has been prepared with PVA under-glue, and oil painting primer, with thicker application of pigment, scraped and re-painted in many layers. Impact/audience is referred to in the first slide.

DART, editioned print, wood engraving 1/50 , 140mm x 100mmImage engraved onto a holly wood-block. An encapsulation of the life of a river, with currents, flora & fauna, the moon & tides.This was one of four illustrations commissioned by Miriam Rosenbloom, Faber & Faber, as cover art for Dart, poems by Alice OswaldIts audience/impact is for a large print-run of Dart, 2000, as one of several re-issued poetry books: Simon Armitage, Wendy Cope, Philip Larkin, Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, which have been illustrated by contemporary printmaker-illustrators.